Contents
including How To Videos on setting up these searches
Executive Summary
2024 Acquiring companies were likely to:
Have scaled up (in either headcount or turnover), been mentioned in a high growth list, and had some form of equity or debt funding
Be based in the United Kingdom (particularly the South of England) or the United States
Have over 100 employees, turnover of over £30M, and over £1M in EBITDA, Operating Profit and Cash
Be valued at over £10M, and have received over £6M in equity funding
2024 Acquired companies were likely to:
Have scaled up (in either headcount or turnover)
Be based in the South of England or the North West
Have over £15M in revenue, but headcount varied greatly from a median of 22 to an average of 88.
Be valued at around £2.5-£3M, and for those who have received funding, they received around £1M.
Factors like receiving a grant, attending an accelerator program, being an academic spinout or having a patent seem to not play a large role in being better placed for taking part in an acquisition event.
Data Overview
The underlying data looks at all acquisitions in 2024 between January 1st and the 15th of November and covers 1184 acquired companies and 997 acquiring companies.
This data contains information on these companies' financials, funding and grant history, locational data, auditors, and signs of growth, innovation and risk.
Analysis of the Data - Tables
Financial Analysis
Mean | Acquiring Companies | Acquired Companies |
Number of Accounts Filed* | 682 | 1171 |
Turnover** | £613M | £38.0M |
Operating Profit | £43.7M | £1.87M |
EBITDA** | £66.3M | £2.86M |
Cash | £45.3M | £1.63M |
Number of Employees | 2450 | 80.6 |
* Non-UK companies will not be filing financial accounts to Companies House!
** Companies that have not hit £10.2M in turnover are not required to file full accounts to Companies House, so some fields like Turnover or EBITDA may not be filed by all UK companies
Funding Analysis
Mean | Acquiring Companies | Acquired Companies |
Latest pre-money valuation | £181M | £14.5M |
Latest post-money valuation | £192M | £16.1M |
Latest Turnover multiples following the most recent fundraising | 29.7 | 28.8 |
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Number of grants received | 0.31 | 0.13 |
Total amount received in grants | £1.09M £139,000 | £567,000 |
Number of fundraisings completed | 0.823 | 0.512 |
Total amount received in fundraisings | £52.2M | £4.05M |
Non-Financial Analysis
Signs of growth, innovation and risk
For more information on this, read this page about our Signals!
Signal | Acquiring Companies | Acquired Companies |
Equity Fundraising | 245 | 221 |
Debt Fundraising | 43 | 14 |
MBO/MBI | 97 | 34 |
Accelerator | 48 | 46 |
10% Scaleup | 381 | 349 |
20% Scaleup | 287 | 212 |
High Growth List | 255 | 142 |
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Academic Spinout | 1 | 6 |
R&D Grant | 25 | 29 |
Patent | 42 | 22 |
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Liquidation and insolvency | 4 | 26 |
CCJ | 11 | 7 |
Short Cash Runway | 50 | 0 |
Down Round | 11 | 13 |
Most common auditors
Acquiring Companies Top 10 | Acquired Companies Top 10 |
BDO, 37 | RSM UK Audit - 15 mentions |
Azets Audit Services, 16 | Azets Audit Services - 12 mentions |
Deloitte, 16 | PWC - 8 mentions |
PWC, 15 | Cooper Parry - 8 mentions |
EY, 14 | Grant Thornton - 7 mentions |
Grant Thornton, 14 | BDO - 7 mentions |
RSM UK Audit, 14 | CLA Evelyn Partners - 6 mentions |
KPMG, 12 | Forvis Mazars - 6 mentions |
Hazlewoods, 8 | Hazlewoods - 5 mentions |
Johnston Carmichael, 7 | KPMG - 4 mentions |
Most common headquarters location
On a country level, 71.2% of the Acquiring companies are based in the United Kingdom, followed by the United States (11.9%), Germany (3.8%) and France (1.9%)
For the UK-based acquiring companies, 26.7% are based in London, followed by the South East (14.2%), then the North West (12.3%), and Yorkshire and The Humber (7.8%).
Scotland represented 5.7% of companies, whilst Wales and Northern Ireland represented 4.2% and 1.2% respectively.
As for Acquired companies, 31.1% were headquartered in London, followed by the South East (13.1%), North West (9.1%) and the South West (6.8%).
Tracking Status
Of the Acquiring companies, 48.5% are Tracked, 45.3% are Not Tracked, and 6.1% are Ceased Tracking
Projecting Forward - Using Advanced Search
From this, we can build a prospective search for companies likely to be involved in an acquisition event next year.
Companies likely to acquire another company
A demonstration of how to build the above search from scratch
https://www.loom.com/share/6ea7348f68ba40b882bb471c2ce10982?sid=5906bf4b-2dd1-4e7b-9e6e-9309ce083351
Companies likely to be acquired
A demonstration of how to build the above search
: https://www.loom.com/share/4a67e90bbf97462d826a6919e29faf9b?sid=448dfb44-e654-46e2-a611-9c3d65181bca
Next Steps
Set up these searches on your account and save them to a collection. This will allow you to receive tailored alerts to make sure you're on top of all interesting activities for these companies of interest.
Speak to your Account Manager or Client Experience Manager for support on how to build out similar searches like this
Consider adding in other elements that might make companies more likely to be involved in an acquisition
eg. A company with an ageing founder or director may be setting up to be acquired
eg2. A company with prior experience of acquiring a company or with positive trends in their financials (e.g., a 20% increase in turnover or a 5% compound annual growth rate in their EBITDA) is more likely to acquire than companies without these traits.
Read our similar Help Centre blog about companies that are likely to exit, either via acquisition or IPO.